KULANU “All of Us”

‘DELICIOUS PEACE’ FAIR TRADE COOPERATIVE, KULANU AND THANKSGIVING COFFEE SHARE GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP AWARD

SOMERVILLE, MASS. March 4, 2008 – The Mirembe Kawomera ‘Delicious Peace’ Fair Trade Coffee Cooperative of Uganda, the US not-for-profit organization, Kulanu, and the Thanksgiving Coffee Company today received the 2008 Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award from the Tufts Institute for Global Leadership.
The award honored the three organizations for their “wonderful, innovative and powerful efforts on behalf of alleviating poverty, creating accountable and sustainable trade practices, encouraging community peace and promoting interfaith harmony.” Past recipients of the award include Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Dr. Paul Farmer, and economist John Kenneth Galbraith.
Tufts created the award, named in honor of Dr. Jean Mayer, former Tufts president and world-renowned nutritionist, to recognize scholars and practitioners whose moral courage, personal integrity and passion are dedicated to solving the most pressing problems facing the world.
Conceived by Kulanu singer-activist Laura Wetzler and Abayudaya coffee farmer J.J. Keki in Laura’s Massachusetts kitchen, the Mirembe Kawomera ‘Delicious Peace’ project brings together nearly 700 Jewish, Muslim and Christian coffee farmers in a cooperative to produce and export certified fair trade, organic coffee.

Collaborating Across Continents to Fight Poverty With Coffee

In December 2002, Ms. Wetzler, who serves as Kulanu’s Coordinator for Uganda, hosted J.J. Keki while he was visiting the U.S. on a Kulanu national speaking tour. The two conceived of the project during a discussion of marketable Ugandan export crops, particularly coffee, that might help the community and its neighbors climb out of the crushing cycle of poverty. From the beginning, the two discussed the new opportunities to be found in the organic and fair trade movements and the potential to involve farmers of the three faiths.
After the tour, Mr. Keki returned to Uganda and began to recruit farmers on foot while Ms. Wetzler did additional research on the US organic fair trade specialty coffee market. Consulting by phone and email, they developed a profile for the cooperative emphasizing the peace-building nature of the project, created a business plan, and formed a relationship with a certified fair trade organic coffee cooperative already operating in nearby Mbale, Uganda.
Only then could they move into the next phase: finding a US buyer for the new cooperative’s coffee. Ms. Wetzler approached 50 coffee companies by phone, fax and mail. Most all of them told her the cooperative was “too small” or “too much trouble” before Thanksgiving Coffee Company, of Ft. Bragg, Calif., embraced the “peace through the dignity of work” message of their project in 2004. Paul Katzeff, president of Thanksgiving Coffee, was so excited that he bought all of the coffee that the cooperative would produce for ten years. His company’s motto is “not just a cup, but a just cup.”
Sales of Mirembe Kawomera ‘Delicious Peace’ coffee have doubled every year, and recently Kulanu helped the cooperative secure a substantial business development grant from the U.S. government through USAID.

Kulanu: Working Side by Side With the Abayudaya for Thirteen Years

A grassroots, not-for-profit Jewish organization of direct-action volunteers, Kulanu has been working side by side with the leaders of the Abayudaya community for thirteen years. In the past six years, Kulanu and the Abayudaya have worked together on several large-scale public works including the first village water well, electrification, and improved sanitation.
Kulanu also collaborates on the community’s primary and high schools, known as ‘peace schools’ because, in the spirit of the coffee project, they feed and educate 500 hungry Jewish, Muslim and Christian children each day. Kulanu helped create, and supports, 20 other sustainable development projects in the Abayudaya community, covering such areas as micro-finance, eco-tourism, crafts and music, sustainable agricultural development, adult literacy, women’s empowerment and public health education.
Kulanu (the Hebrew word for “All of Us”) is a tax-exempt volunteer organization dedicated to welcoming lost and dispersed remnants of the Jewish people, and to helping them connect to the larger Jewish world. The organization encourages research, contacts, visits, education and local problem solving in communities in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America.
For more information about Kulanu, please visit www.kulanu.org.
For almost ninety years, the members of the Abayudaya community of Uganda have lived rich Jewish lives, despite economic poverty and many years of oppression. For more information about the Abayudaya Jews of Uganda, please visit www.kulanu.org/abayudaya.
For more information about Mirembe Kawomera, please visit www.deliciouspeace.com.
For more information about Thanksgiving Coffee Co., please visit www.thanksgivingcoffee.com.

Note to editors: High-resolution images are available at: www.kulanu.org/press.
For interviews, contact: Susan Schorr (646) 957-7000 or srschorr@kulanu.org.